A nature documentary centered on two cat families and how they teach their cubs the ways of the wild.

REVIEW:

Here's something I learned from watching AFRICAN CATS – Lions don't roar like the MGM logo lion does. They actually don't have that “manly” type of growl. The MGM lion isn't really a lion as it's an Aardvark. When I heard the lion's roar in this movie, it didn't make sense to me until I researched a discovered MGM's manipulation. Kind of an ironic thing having a major movie studio lie to its audience right at the beginning of all of their films. Some say that's what storytelling is all about. As others would say that was the beginning of the end of mankind.

At its core, AFRICAN CATS is about family and mentorship. New animals are born into the world and the parents need to teach them the ways of their world in order for them to survive. You are taught at the beginning of this film that if the young cubs don't have parents telling them how to hunt, then the cubs are soon to be eaten up by the other animals in their wild.

I almost thought that animals were just born with a sort of sixth eating sense when they were born and knew right away where they were on the food chain of their existence. Like the cubs knew right before they did anything that Caribou was their animal to kill and eat from. This film taught me and probably others that trial and error teaches the cubs who they can kill for food and what animal is after them to kill for food.

These are the types of films made for students to watch in their geography class for years to come. You can tell that there were pros working on this film and a lot of money was spent filming these animals day after day, month after month in order to tell a truthful story on how African cats survive.

Right from the start you feel for these animals and wish all of them the best in their environments. And that's great storytelling! 5 minutes before entering the cinema to watch this film, I never really thought about these animals since probably forever. Then right from the start I was hooked in following their journey of bonding, food and survival from the animals in their way.

What this film also taught me is how I sure sweat the small stuff a lot of the time. This month has been an extremely stressful month for me and my business as what can go wrong did go wrong. And to top that off we were having major issues with our living arrangements. I was at the high point of my stress level when I went to see AFRICAN CATS and I realized that these animals in the wild sure have it a lot tougher than us top of the food chain humans. I guess selfishly we have to thank our thumbs for that.

The AFRICAN CATS are always thinking about food, shelter and protection from the animals who want to eat them. Those are the only three things that can be on their minds. So of course we humans have evolved a bit more intellectually and emotionally because for many of us those three things are never on our minds because they are taken care of for us.

With those three conflicts always on their minds, you can't think about things like why are we hear and what's on TV tonight! They are alive and they want to stay that way. So they keep plunging into their world, attempting to live day by live until they know they'll eventually die because they've seen others die on a daily basis.

With that, there are always moments for the parents and their offspring to bond through the training of how to survive. In many ways the AFRICAN CATS can never turn off their brains and just “veg” because they always have to be aware. So perhaps they are much smarter than us and so many other and probably more important ways. So the thumb is our best friend and worst enemy at the same time. We've evolved but we also got lazy because of it.

I loved this film and I hope they make more of them as the years go by. Films like this is what humanity is all about. Studying other animals to gain more insight on life as a whole.